SWW...In any placer operation, the objective is to separate the heavy material from the light. The more efficient the process, the more fine or "flour gold" is retained. Fine gold will float, thus will be washed out with the clays if the water tension is not broken. If you try to bond the clays to make them heavier, you are in essence defeating the purpose. When I prospect, I use Jet Dry right off the grocery shelf to settle all the fine stuff when doing clean-up. GE's method will do the same thing, just on a much larger and far more professional level. However, placer separation is consistent in that there are very few ways to efficiently and economically separate materials. Therefore, when you're right, you're really right!! But when you're wrong you go broke in a hurry. If GE can actually get the final product at $75.00 p/troy Oz. consistently, they are really right on!!
Also, assays are done for several reasons. The two most common are to find out what materials are in the ore.The other is to obtain the purity of the metals and also to see what the by-products are and how much. Silver, gold, platinum groups, copper etc, all have different melting points and can be separated from each other, again when economical amounts occur. In gold mining, copper and silver are the most common by-products. In copper mining, gold is often a by-product. With silver, scheelite which is used to make tungsten is often common. It varies from region to region as to the main material and secondary materials. One thing to keep in mind though, just because GE's primary source of income will be gold, doesn't mean that's the only thing they will make money from in the long run.
Sorry for the long post for mining 101, but hope it helps you some.
TC |
